


Away on Break

by bluemermaid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:39:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5952328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemermaid/pseuds/bluemermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andy thinks she needs some time away from her family. But Narcissa is a hard person not to miss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Away on Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilecourageuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/gifts).



Sometimes the walls felt so close. Andy could feel herself shrinking in, the pressure squeezing her in on all sides, her lungs crushed and unable to draw in air. There were just too many _people_. All she wanted was to be alone, alone to think in peace, alone to sort herself out without the constant surrounding _noise_.

It wasn't that she didn't love and adore her sister. Narcissa had been basically her entire world for most of her life. How else would Andy have gotten through those rough years when she hadn't even known herself, when she hadn't known how to deal with the fact that she had thoughts which weren't commonly accepted amongst her kind? She hadn't felt loved by her parents, who had the unfortunate tendency to appear cold and unfeeling on the surface. No matter how deeply they may have felt underneath, it was difficult for a child as passionate as Andromeda Black to understand what lay beneath a silent exterior.

But there had always been Cissy. Cissy who was elegant and calm but who also loved, who showered her Andy in affections and adoration. The two of them had always been inseparable, scampering through the halls and gardens of Black Manor with their fingers intertwined, sharing their evolving artistic skills, whispering to one another in the dead of night. Andromeda could not imagine how she may have turned out, had she not had her Cissy beside her.

And still. Still sometimes it was too much, still sometimes Andy wished to be left alone. The very idea of speaking to Narcissa, trying to articulate her whirl of emotions, was impossible, as though staring at an insurmountably tall black wall. Cissy could not ever possibly understand this, blessed as she was with a constant source of composure, of knowing when to speak and what exactly to say.

Andy had never had this. She'd spoken out of turn so many times they were like marks upon her skin, lashes for her sins. She'd burst in and out of rooms like a cyclone, never satisfied, never certain, never quenched. It was too much, sometimes. She couldn't bear the thought of being trapped inside that house for a moment longer, those long dark halls and all the voices whispering, whispering, telling Andromeda how wrong she was, wrong for simply being herself.

It wasn't as though she could simply tell Cissy that she didn't want to be a Black, that she didn't want to get married, that she didn't want to discriminate against someone simply for their blood type or Hogwarts house. It simply didn't matter to her; none of the politics of life mattered. All Andromeda wished to do was sit in her room and read novels, paint pictures. She didn't care about anything else.

Her love for Cissy was a warmth inside her chest, though it beat strongly against the urge for freedom. Her sister was soft and sweet and intelligent in ways Andy could never hope to be. Cissy knew the world and she knew her place in it; she knew what she wanted. Andromeda did not.

The desire to escape was overwhelming and she could not resist it forever. There was no logical explanation, no way of putting into words her reason for leaving. It was simply a pull, a rope around her heart which would not unwind, and so she packed a bag and left, leaving nothing of her soul behind save for one piece of parchment, over which she had agonized for ages before finishing, a letter to her sister.

_Please do not take my leaving as a personal slight against you, my dearest little Cissy. It's just for myself. I adore you but I needed space. I will write when I've found a place to stay._

Narcissa would not understand. But Andromeda had to try.

**

Andromeda stepped out into the cold and pulled her scarf tighter around her neck. The wind was biting, and the winter weather chilled her to the bone.

She stood for a moment on the front step of her building, peering back up at the window she had just left behind. Her flat was on the second floor, and she usually left the curtains open. In the dim light of late afternoon, she could almost see the small flowerpot she'd left on the sill.

Cissy had given her the flowers. They had arrived the day before, bundled up tightly with a note carefully scrawled in Narcissa's elegant handwriting. It was a letter Andy had not wanted to read. It begged her to come home, to reconsider her rash decision to abandon her family.

Abandonment. What did any of them know of abandonment? The Blacks were so intertwined as to be inseparable, unable to go without one another, unable to even marry outside their own bloodlines. And then they wondered why they churned out madmen.

No, Andromeda had not abandoned anyone. She had simply been craving a break, days of silence, days with no one to listen to but herself. And so she had moved away.

She could imagine Cissy writing to her, her blonde hair shining by the light of the candles as she sat, so primly, at her little desk. Cissy in her warm furs, Cissy with her lace gloves, Cissy who smiled so delicately. At least for others.

With Andy she would laugh. With her Andy, Cissy would throw her head back and laugh, would speak aloud all of her fears, would shed every tear which otherwise may have hidden behind her pride. The two of them protected one another, gave one another reason for freedom and wild abandon. What right had Andromeda to take that from her? To disappear into the mists, withdraw with her role as supporter and friend? The two of them had not spoken face to face since Andy had left. Letters did not do their relationship justice.

She turned away from the building, turned her eyes from the window with its fluttering curtain, and began to make her way down the little street, her boots stumbling slightly on the cobblestones. If she focused on her physical self, she could forget the feelings of guilt and shame and embarrassment which would threaten to overwhelm her should she contemplate them. She was doing the right thing. She was saving herself. She was not dooming her little sister.

Andy pulled her scarf tight against the cold, and shivered into the bitter winter winds. She would walk for as long as it took to keep the thoughts away.

**

Cissy looked strange sitting in Andromeda's flat. She looked so tall and white, like a specter come to haunt the very air of the room. She did not belong there.

"Neither do you," she said bitingly, as though she had read her sister's very thoughts. Likely she had; Andy had always been pants at Occlumency. "We both belong at home."

And wasn't it just like Narcissa to say so much in so little. She would not admit so easily to being lonely without her sister, to missing Andy and hating her decision to go. Yet it was there, plain to see, written into the lines of her face, the syllables of her expression. Andy didn't need magic to read that.

"I'm not leaving," she said, stubborn as always, her chin held high as her fingers gripped the smooth cold stone of the kitchen countertop. "I can't go back there. It's stifling. I can't be myself in that house. I'm freer here. I can live without those _looks_ , that disappointment. I was a failure in that family and you know it as well as I do."

"You may believe what you wish of our family," Narcissa said softly, carefully. "But you are no failure to me."

Andromeda couldn't deal; she turned away, looking up towards the ceiling so as not to lose any tears. How could she possibly respond to such a statement? Of course she knew; of _course_ she _knew_ how Cissy felt about her. They were sisters, confidantes, partners even when the world would have torn them down from all angles. Why did Andy feel so strongly the need to escape from such a relationship? All Cissy wanted was to love her, to be beside her. It should not have felt like a prison sentence. And it didn't.

"Cissy," she said, and her voice cracked. "I can't...."

There was a long silence. Andy took a deep breath, her lungs burning, and then she turned around again, met her sister's gaze across the flat and held it for the longest of moments. What else could she say, when she had bared her soul in silence? She had never been a proper Black and nothing was going to change that now. Cissy had to accept that. She had to accept when her sister needed a break from the life she had been forced into.

Narcissa rose from her place on the sofa, walked elegantly across the room, took Andy's hands in hers and looked at her, her eyes soft and desperate, pleading. "You can."

There was so much love in those two little words; Andy felt her eyes burn with the urge to cry, felt her heart stutter and beat so harshly in her chest. Why did it have to be so hard? Why did it have to be so hard to reconcile all the love she had for her family with the desperation to be free? And what was freedom, anyway? What was love, for that matter? And could they co-exist?

Andromeda thought about her bedroom, the little safe space she had made for herself in Black Manor. What had really been wrong with it, really? It was hers, and it was removed from the pressures of outdoor life. She hadn't needed to run away to find that.

"I can," she said quietly, her voice shaking, and she squeezed Cissy's fingers tight, felt the rush of relief run through her as she allowed her affection for her sister to take hold. "If you're with me."

Love was knowing what your loved ones needed. Andy needed her breaks, from time to time, her seclusion from society in order to right the whirling confusion of her mind. Cissy, sweet Cissy...she needed her sister. They could make it both work; they had to.

"I am always with you," Narcissa said. "I cannot confess to understand your reasoning behind this...." She swept her arm across the flat, with only the merest hint of disgust crossing her face as she did so. Still, when her gaze met Andromeda's again, there was nothing but love there. "But I am with you, should you desire it."

"Oh, Cissy, you're so prim and proper all the time," Andy said, allowing herself to laugh, allowing her nerves and sadness to burst as though Narcissa had taken a needle to an overfilled balloon. "Come, sister, speak your truths. You adore me." She grinned, and pulled Cissy in close, throwing her arms around her and holding her tight. 

"You know that it's so," Cissy whispered, hugging Andy just as tight. "I love you, and I want you to come home with me."

"I don't know," Andy said with a sigh. "There is so much I don't know."

But they stood holding each other in the space between kitchen and sitting room, the space between freedom and love, the space between family and life.

**

"It is perfect," Narcissa breathed, stepping back with her hands clasped before her, a smile of beautiful joy upon her face.

"Is it?" Andromeda asked, cocking her head as she studied her latest painting. "I didn't think it my best work."

"Oh, but it is," Cissy replied, coming over to grasp Andy's hand, their fingers intertwining. "It is beyond your most beautiful achievements."

It was the two of them, standing much as they were now, holding hands and smiling at one another, basking in the love and devotion which soared so deeply between them. In the distance, in an open doorway, their parents also stood, watching their daughters with equal expressions of love upon their faces. It was a family portrait that Andy could be proud of, one which combined her love and happiness with her desire for distance and freedom, the possibility that she could have it all. 

With Narcissa beside her, she did have it all. Yes, her sister had a tendency to sometimes not realize when Andy wished to be alone, when she was not in the mood for cuddles and laughter. But she was getting better, and she was understanding. Nothing could truly ever break the bond that they shared, nor even bend it. No matter how confused Andy would sometimes feel, how stifled and how crushed, she would always come back to her Cissy. They simply needed one another. It was the power of the sisterly love they had and would always have together.


End file.
